DC: All for One Chapter 8 - Did you really think it would be that easy?

Knock

Knock

Knock

The light of a late Gotham afternoon did little to warm the apartment complex. Harvey Bullock stood on the third-floor landing of an unremarkable building in Bristol, the part of Gotham that liked to pretend it was just a regular city. He felt out of place, not just because he was wearing a button-down shirt that was two sizes too small and smelled faintly of burnt coffee, but because this wasn't his usual territory. This was where middle-class cops lived. He didn't know how Renee afforded this place on a detective salary, but she was a lucky bitch all the same. Harvey would give his left nut not to have to fight a rat in his kitchen every other week. 

Knock

Knock

Knock

Three days. It had been three days since he got that call. A strange call, at that. It came right after the City Hall explosion, in the middle of the frantic scramble. He remembered picking up, expecting her to be on the scene, and hearing her voice saying her mother was sick and she had to leave town immediately.

Sorry, Bullock, but my Ma is sick, and it's not looking good. I had to leave last night to visit her... don't expect me to pick up my phone

He'd been too exhausted and too focused on the bombed-out server room to process it then. But three days. No text, no check-in, no reply to the half-dozen voicemails he'd left. That wasn't Renee. Renee was a rock. She hated leaving a case unfinished, and even if her mother was dying, she would have called Gordon, filed proper paperwork, and left an emergency contact number.

He had tried calling her mother's number—the one on her old intake file. It was disconnected. He checked the next of kin—no one was listed. Renee had always been private, a ghost about her personal life. The only thing he knew was that she was from a tough neighborhood on the outskirts—Burnley he thinks—and that she didn't talk about her family.

Harvey knocked again, the sound hollow in the quiet hall. "Montoya! It's me, Harvey! Open up!"

Silence.

He felt the familiar, thick churn of a bad gut feeling. It wasn't the usual suspicion he felt about snitches or the simple dread of finding a corpse. This was a deep, cold certainty that something had managed to pull the wool over his eyes. There was something wrong here he knew it, every instinct he had was telling him that Montoya wasn't with her mother. 

He knew what he should do. Call the Commissioner, file a formal missing person report on a detective, and follow protocol. That would trigger a city-wide alarm, and Gordon, already on edge from the bombing and the ongoing Batman situation, would lose his mind. But if he did that now, based only on a gut feeling and a few missed calls, and she was actually just visiting a sick relative, Renee would crucify him. He'd never live it down.

But the alternative made his palms sweat. The bomber had erased the evidence tying him to the murder. Renee was the only person who had been closing in on Upshaw's apartment. She had the trail. What are the odds that Montoya's mother gets sick the moment she follows up a lead into a known criminals home, and she doesn't even file the paperwork or let anyone else know she's leaving. 

He wasn't good at math but that shit is damn unlikely. 

He stepped back from the door, his eyes scanning the simple lock. He didn't want to do this. This was breaking and entering, a felony. But if Renee was in danger, paperwork be damned. Harvey took a deep breath, braced his shoulder against the doorframe, and let out a grunt of effort. He rammed his large body into the door just beside the lock with a resounding crack. Wood splintered around the handle as the door flew inward, hitting the wall with a thunderous bang.

"GCPD! Montoya are you here!" he bellowed into the apartment, hand instinctively resting on the grip of his .38 Special, drawn halfway from the holster.

The apartment was immediately unnerving in its normality. It smelled faintly of old coffee grounds and fabric softener. Sunlight streamed through vertical blinds, cutting the living room floor into bright, parallel strips. No signs of struggle. No overturned furniture.

But also, no signs of life.

"Renee?"

He moved inside, still being cautious as he didn't know if someone else had gotten here before himself. The living room was neat. Bookshelves lined the wall, filled with battered paperbacks—mostly classic literature and biographies, nothing notable. A worn, comfortable-looking couch sat opposite a small TV. Everything was dusted, tidy. Too tidy for someone who had supposedly left in a panic to see a dying parent.

He moved into the small kitchen. A dish rack was full of clean, air-dried mugs and a plate. The coffee machine was off, the counter wiped down. There was a faint scent of lemon from the dish soap.

Harvey swore under his breath, the bad feeling growing like an anchor dropped in his stomach. "Damn it."

He walked into the bedroom. It was sparse, utilitarian. A neatly made double bed, an old oak dresser, and a small closet. He opened the closet. Her work uniforms, blazers, and a few dresses hung neatly on hangers. On the floor was a shoe rack: three pairs of heels, one pair of running shoes, and the steel-toed boots she wore constantly on patrol.

The boots were there. She never left for more than a day without those boots, they were the boots she used nearly all the time.

Harvey walked to the dresser and pulled open the top drawer. Neatly folded underwear and socks. He pulled the next one. A stack of plain white t-shirts. The third drawer held her civilian clothes: a few pairs of jeans, sweaters, and her favorite leather jacket folded on top.

He froze.

Renee's duffel bag was still tucked under the bed.

She hadn't gone anywhere. She hadn't packed a bag, hadn't taken her boots, hadnt even brought a change of clothes. The "sick mother" story was a lie.

Harvey moved to the desk in the corner. Pencils in a cup, notebooks stacked, and her desktop computer sitting dark. He reached out and touched the power button.

A piece of paper lay on the mousepad with a hastily scribbled list of tasks:

 * Astoria CCTV warrant (Judge H)

 * Track Creedence Apt (Warrant approved)

 * Check Kane Student File? (Underlined three times)

 * Call Gordon re: Davis.

The list ended abruptly. The last item, about checking on Ethan Kane... it was the next item on her list. Harvey leaned back, running a massive hand over his face. He felt like he'd just walked into a spider's web. Renee wasn't visiting anyone. She had been working the Upshaw case right up until the moment she vanished. And she had been focusing on the same kid that Harvey had pegged as an anomaly: Ethan Kane. 

He walked back to the kitchen, kicking aside a crumple in the rug. He retraced her movements, trying to find a sign, any sign. He checked the bathroom. Towel drying on the rack. A single hair tied up in the shower drain. Everything in place. But the last thing she had worn was missing. Her service jacket wasn't in the closet. Her GCPD ID and badge weren't on the desk.

"God damn it, Renee!" Harvey roared, the sound echoing through the small apartment. He didn't know if he was angry at her, at the situation, or at the sinking feeling that he'd failed her. He was supposed to be the senior detective. The one who could see through lies due to the sheer number of years on the job, but he hadn't. Why had he left things so late, why had he waited three days to check her apartment?

That damn phone call. 

Hearing Renee's voice had reassured him that everything was okay despite the evidence speaking to the contrary. In fact if it wasn't for that phone call he would've already busted down that door and told Jim she was missing. Things made a lot more sense if he went on the assumption that the phone call was fake. 

He looked at the broken door and the empty apartment, and his mind raced. 'The bomber, the murderer, the kidnapper. There had to be a way that I can link this all to Ethan Kane...' he thought to himself as he slammed his palm into his hands. Working with the assumption that Ethan Kane was the perp and had been covering his tracks. He had destroyed the CCTV evidence. He had set up a fake alibi for Renee. And he had taken her.

Had he killed her?

Harvey pulled out his phone, his thumb hovering over James Gordon's number. This wasn't a gut feeling anymore. This was a detective, his partner, missing and likely abducted by a dangerous, calculating killer, even if he was wrong and he ended up humiliating himself he couldn't let it go. The game had just changed. Harvey knew that calling Jim now would bring the Bat into it, and he had a terrifying feeling that the Kid from Gotham Academy was about to face a very different kind of interrogation.

He hit dial.

_____________________________________

"That class is how a covalent bond remains stable, Noe look to your textbooks."

Ethan looked to his textbook. Or, more accurately, the textbook propped open to vaguely resemble engagement while his actual focus remained elsewhere. His gaze was fixed on a complex diagram of cellular pathways, not the covalent bonds Miss Evans was droning on about. His thoughts were a mix of protein synthesis, mitochondrial efficiency, and DNA transcription—all components for the permanent super-soldier formula he was designing. The temporary serum he and Barbara had mapped out was a stepping stone. The real prize was a genetic rewrite, a baseline enhancement that would make him functionally superhuman without the strain of hyperadrenal.

RING

The bell shrilled, cutting through the droning lecture and the murmur of teenage voices. Ethan closed his textbook, his notes already committed to memory. He slung his backpack over one shoulder, and made his way out. As he exited the classroom and navigated the crowded corridor, a gaggle of girls, all bright smiles and perfectly styled hair, converged on him. They were the popular type, the ones who usually ignored the poor kid, though he'd been getting more attention from them recently.

"Hey, Ethan!" one of them, a blonde with a cheerleading uniform, chirped, stepping directly into his path. "So, like, prom is next month, and I was wondering if you, you know, wanted to go? With me?"

Another, a dark-haired girl in a fashionable top, quickly cut in, "No, me! He said he'd consider it last week, didn't you, Ethan?"

Ethan paused, observing their expressions. A mixture of manufactured flirtation, competitive aggression, and genuine curiosity. He registered their slightly elevated heart rates, the subtle dilations in their pupils—all physiological markers of romantic or social interest. He had read about this, of course, but experiencing it was... different. A new data point. "I appreciate the offers," Ethan replied flatly, devoid of the fluster they probably expected. "But I have a partner."

The girls exchanged bewildered glances. "A girlfriend? Who?" the blonde asked, her tone shifting from coy to suspicious. "We didn't know you were dating anyone."

Just then, a familiar figure appeared at the end of the corridor, pushing through the crowd. Barbara Gordon. Her fiery red hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail. Her eyes, magnified by her glasses, scanned the crowd, her brow furrowing slightly when she spotted Ethan surrounded. She walked straight towards them, a determined set to her jaw. "Everything alright here, Ethan?" she asked, her voice a little sharper than usual, a subtle possessiveness in her tone. She didn't look at the other girls, her gaze only fixed on him.

The cheerleaders, suddenly deflated, mumbled apologies and drifted away, casting resentful looks over their shoulders. Barbara watched them go, then turned back to Ethan, a slight blush rising on her cheeks.

"They were asking me to prom," Ethan stated.

"I figured," Barbara said, still a little flushed. "Are you hungry? I packed us lunch."

"A good idea," Ethan agreed. "I need to discuss the molecular structure of the CoQ10 derivative with you."

They walked towards the library, Barbara's presence creating a small bubble of space around Ethan as other students, mostly boys, shot glares in their direction. Ethan noticed the heightened hostility, the tightened jaws, the averted gazes that snapped back with a flicker of resentment. He internally calculated an 82% increase in baseline aggression metrics from the general male population in his vicinity compared to previous days.

Conclusion: Jealousy. A predictable, yet inefficient, human response to perceived romantic territoriality.

They settled at a quiet table in the back of the library, pulling out containers. Barbara had packed elaborate bento boxes with homemade sushi and fruit. Ethan had a protein bar. "So," Barbara began, picking at a piece of avocado. "About the formula. I was thinking, for the adenosine receptor agonist, we could use a non-selective one, to ensure broad activation, but we'd need a counter-agent for potential cardiac arrhythmia, especially with the ATP overclocking."

"My initial thought was a beta-blocker analog," Ethan replied, taking a precise bite of his protein bar. "But a more elegant solution would be to integrate the CoQ10 derivative into a calcium-channel modulator. It would stabilize the heart rate while simultaneously protecting the mitochondria from oxidative stress. It's a dual-purpose compound."

"Dual-purpose... brilliant!" Barbara's eyes lit up, and she almost clapped her hands, stopping herself at the last second. "That simplifies the synthesis pathway significantly! We could even synthesize it with a custom chiral center to maximize bioavailability without causing unwanted side effects. And for the peptide shuttles, I've been researching some novel viral vectors that could dramatically improve blood-brain barrier penetration without provoking an immune response."

They continued to dissect the complex biochemistry, their lunch forgotten, consumed by the intellectual challenge. Ethan enjoyed the exchange. Barbara's mind was sharp, her insights often providing efficient solutions to potential problems. It was a rare thing, this seamless intellectual synergy. As they talked, Ethan observed the continued hostile stares from across the library. One particularly burly jock, a football player named Mark, was glaring openly, his face contorted in a sneer. Ethan's internal calculations confirmed the cause.

Prediction: Further public display of affection will intensify hostile reactions.

Hypothesis: Intensified hostile reactions will provide additional data on human emotional volatility and potentially be amusing.

A faint smirk, almost imperceptible, touched Ethan's lips beneath his usual impassive expression. He leaned across the table, catching Barbara by surprise. His hand gently cupped her cheek, and he pressed his lips against hers. Barbara's eyes, wide with shock, fluttered shut. She melted into the kiss for a moment, her sushi roll dropping onto the table with a soft plop. Her body softened against his, a quiet sigh escaping her lips. 

When Ethan pulled back, her face was a vibrant crimson, her hair slightly askew. "Ethan!" she whispered, mortified, glancing around the library. "Here? Now? You could at least wait until after school!"

Ethan simply nodded, unfazed. "Noted."

He glanced back at Mark, the football player. Mark's face was now a mask of furious disbelief, his hands clenched into fists. Other boys had stopped pretending to read, their anger palpable. Ethan registered another 15% increase in aggression metrics, bringing the total to 97% hostility from the male cohort.

Data confirmed. Human emotional response to romantic stimuli is highly predictable and easily manipulated.

The rest of the school day passed without incident, though the corridors felt more hostile wherever Ethan and Barbara walked together. Ethan ignored it, his mind already racing ahead to the science lab. After school, they headed directly to the empty science lab. The moment the door clicked shut behind them, Barbara turned, her earlier embarrassment forgotten, and launched herself at him. She grabbed his face with both hands, pulling his mouth down to hers in a fierce, hungry kiss.

Ethan responded and he pressed her against the lab bench. Her hands tangled in his hair, tugging lightly, her body arching against his. The kiss deepened, becoming more and more intense until a soft moan escaped Barbara's throat, and she began fumbling with the buttons of his shirt.

Ethan, however, put a hand gently on her wrist, stopping her. "We have work to do," he stated.

Barbara pulled back, breathless, her cheeks flushed scarlet, her eyes a mix of desire and frustration. She glanced at her rumpled shirt, then at the scattered papers on the bench. "Right. Work." She smoothed her hair, composing herself with a visible effort.

After that they got to work on the formula, setting up the machines and grabbing the various beakers with different substances. As they got to work Barbara looked to one of the empty spots on the work bench, a slight annoyed expression on her face. "I'm still so disappointed about the exotic matter detector," Barbara sighed, while carefully measuring a solution. "After all that work building it too."

Ethan paused, adjusting a spectrometer. "It doesn't matter. We can build another one."

Barbara shook her head. "But it was so sophisticated. The micro-sensors, the wave dampeners... Losing it in that robbery' was a real shame."

Ethan remained silent, his expression unreadable behind his mask of focus. He had indeed staged a robbery in the school science lab. The "exotic matter detector" was, in fact, his custom-built meta-human tracking device, it also allowed him to blur his image on cameras. With it, he no longer needed to rely solely on online forums or intuition. It was tucked away securely in his Doothenhall mansion basement, one of his most prized possessions. 

"The loss of a tool is only a setback if one lacks the capacity to create a superior replacement," Ethan finally said.

Barbara conceded, "You're right, as always. But still, it was our first big project together."

They continued working, the hours blurring into a focused haze of scientific endeavor. The initial stages of their temporary serum formula began to take shape, a pale, viscous liquid shimmering in a sealed vial. By the time the sky outside turned a deep violet, painting the lab window with hues of night, they had reached a natural stopping point. Barbara stretched, groaning softly. "That's enough for tonight. My brain is officially fried." She gathered her notes, a small smile playing on her lips. "Want to come over for dinner? Mom probably made too much again."

"No, thank you," Ethan replied, systematically cleaning his workspace. "I need to go home tonight."

"Oh. Okay." Her smile faltered slightly. "I can give you a ride, then? It's getting dark, and the East End isn't exactly safe after hours."

"I prefer to walk," Ethan said, his tone leaving no room for argument.

Barbara nodded in understanding. 

They walked out of the school together, the empty corridors echoing their footsteps. As they reached Barbara's car in the dimly lit parking lot, she turned to him, rising on her tiptoes to give him a quick kiss on the lips. "Bye, Ethan," she murmured, a warmth in her voice that was almost imperceptible to him.

"Goodbye, Barbara," he replied, then turned and walked away to her car.

He headed towards his own home in the East End, the empty house where his parents were likely in a drug induced stupor.

...

Ethan mindlessly walked back home, thinking that it best not to stay there too long, only enough to get some rest before he visits Renee again and feeds her. Perhaps he could then stay and speak with her some more, he does find that he enjoys the conversations he has with her despite her not talking much.  As he neared the sagging brick of his apartment building, a flicker of movement snagged his attention. Two men, leaning casually against a boarded-up liquor store across the street. Their eyes were fixed on his building, and their posture, while appearing relaxed, had a subtle tension—shoulders slightly forward, hands never leaving the front pockets of their cheap leather jackets.

'Police?'

'No... more likely to be gang affiliated...'

It was unlikely they'd be here for him so they must be watching the address for debt collection or reprisal. There was no shortage of drug users in his building. 

Ethan dismissed them and entered the foul-smelling lobby. He took the stairs, the rancid smell of stale smoke and piss intensifying with each floor. His nose wrinkled in involuntary disgust. He hated this place. Soon, he would leave here forever. Reaching his door, Ethan pulled his key. Though as he looked to the lock he frowned. The lock cylinder was newer, the brass a brighter, shinier color than the metal of the plate. The wood around the jamb showed subtle scoring marks, inexpertly puttied over. The lock had been broken and replaced. He slowly pushed the door inward, careful not to disturb the newly set hinges.

The air inside was subtly different the putrid layer of decay that usually filled the apartment had been masked, replaced by a faint metallic tang of bleach. He continued down the hallway keeping his guard up. When he reached the living room threshold, he paused.

Both his parents sat there. His mother on the left, his father on the right.

The world slowed. His consciousness dissolved into pure, accelerated observation.

They were sitting unnaturally straight, their backs 

 against the cushions of the sofa. His father's arm was draped over the back of the couch in a pose he'd never once adopted. His mother's hands lay flat on her knees, unmoving. Which was strange as even when she was on something her hands shook. 

The television was on, tuned to a nature documentary about zebras. The volume was low but loud enough to mask most sounds within a certain radius.

Ethan's gaze snapped to his father's face. The eyes were open, but fixed, reflecting the light with a dull, flat sheen. Pupils fixed and dilated. 

He was Dead. Less than twelve hours.

He glanced at his mother, her head was resting too far back, exposing a thin, purplish bruise at the neck. Strangulation before staging.

He processed the scent of bleach cutting through the room's normal stench, a clumsy attempt at hiding the smell of their corpses. His gaze dropped to the rug, subtle, parallel drag marks in the dust layer by the couch. They had been moved and purposely positioned on the sofa.

Then his hearing isolated the critical data; three distinct, shallow breathing patterns. Two slow, uneven breaths coming from behind the couch. One heavy, living intake of air originating approximately six feet directly behind him.

Behind him, currently within reaching distance and in the process of attacking him from behind. 

The realization ignited a feeling he had not felt before. Rage. These men had come into his home and attempted to trap him. Ethan's back remained to the threat. He felt the shift behind him, the slight displacement of air and the faint creak of the floorboards, signaling the first attacker was moving to strike his neck.

He initiated the counter-offensive, activating his Hyperadrenalism with a violent surge that flooded his muscles with four times their normal power. Before the first intruder's hand could touch him, Ethan dropped his backpack and executed a low cartwheel-sweep toward the threat, his leg becoming a wide arc that caught the man's ankles and snapped his feet out from under him, sending the large man's body flying backward into the television stand with a deafening crash of breaking glass and splintered wood.

Before the first attacker could even register the pain, the second man, much smaller and a little quicker, lunged from the shadows near the entrance, raising a pistol that spat a muffled phut, the bullet slamming into the wall where Ethan's head had been a fraction of a second prior, while a third man, emerging from the kitchen doorway, rushed forward drawing a long, serrated fighting knife aimed at Ethan's exposed flank.

Ethan met the third man's charge with a defensive handstand-kick, propelling his body upward in a blurring rotation before snapping his boots outward with catastrophic force, striking the man's chest and sending him tumbling back over the coffee table, the wood splintering beneath his weight as he landed hard near the couch.

The second man, the gunman, fired again, the bullet ripping through the air where Ethan's torso had just been. Ethan used the momentum from his handstand to transition into a rolling somersault toward the center of the room, scooping up the body of his dead mother off the couch by the arm and hurling her across the space with a shocking display of brute strength. The body struck the gunman mid-lunge, the impact knocking the weapon from his hand and sending the pistol skidding across the blood-streaked rug toward the door.

As the gunman staggered back, the fourth attacker, who was massive and carrying a crowbar, dropped in from the doorway leading to the bedrooms, swinging the heavy metal bar in an arc aimed at Ethan's head. Ethan ducked with superhuman agility, letting the crowbar whistle over his neck, and delivered an explosive uppercut to the man's chin. The blow lifted the large man completely off his feet and sent him crashing into the ceiling with a resounding thud, where he collapsed senseless onto the floorboards. One down, three compromised.

Ethan didn't pause. The knifeman, having recovered from the initial handstand-kick, scrambled back to his feet, seizing the moment to rush Ethan with the serrated blade. Ethan met the attack with a deflection, catching the attacker's wrist with his left hand and using the man's forward momentum to pivot and deliver a devastating reverse elbow strike to the side of the man's head. The blow snapped the man's neck sideways, and he went limp, his body falling into the nearby pile of trash where the knife dropped from his hand.

Ethan instantly pivoted back, his eyes locked on the gunman, who was desperately crawling toward his fallen pistol near the entrance. Ethan ran forward and launched into a flying dropkick, clearing the remaining debris, and drove his boots into the gunman's spine, slamming the man face-first into the floor with a bone-jarring impact that silenced his labored breathing. But the first attacker, the largest of the four, was already struggling back up from the shattered television stand, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a second pistol. He fired immediately.

A searing, immediate pain exploded in Ethan's abdomen. The bullet tore through his left side and he stumbled back, one hand clamping over the slick blood blooming beneath his shirt.

The man, seeing Ethan falter, pushed through his own pain and charged, tackling Ethan toward the kitchen counter. Ethan absorbed the impact, twisting as they fell, slamming the man into the counter edge before driving his elbow into the man's throat. The man released his grip, clutching his crushed windpipe as he choked, but Ethan was losing blood fast.

He pulled the man up by the collar and drew his right fist back, the power of his adrenaline surge concentrated for the final blow that would crush the man's skull and end the threat.

He saw the fear, the desperation, the survival instinct reflected in the man's eyes, and he stopped. He changed the trajectory of the punch, slamming his enhanced fist into the man's jaw, just below the ear. The sound of the bone snapping, and the man went instantly limp, his jaw broken and his body crashing to the floor.

Ethan released the broken man, staggering heavily against the kitchen counter, his breath coming in shallow, ragged gasps as the blood poured freely. He deactivated his Hyperadrenalism, letting the rush subside. He was breathing heavily, his chest aching slightly from the effort, the taste of copper in his mouth. He clamped a hand over the bullet wound to try and stop the blood loss. He pushed off the counter, moving with strained foottseps toward the two unconscious intruders. 

He needed information. 

He knelt by the first man, the large one with the shattered sternum, ignoring the grotesque angle of his accomplice's broken jaw. He shoved a hand into the man's jacket pocket, pulling out a cheap wallet stuffed with cash. As he searched, he pulled back the sleeve of the man's leather jacket, revealing the inner forearm. There, etched into the skin with crude black ink, was a tattoo. A jagged iron spike piercing a coiled rope.

Iron Row.

He repeated the search on the second man, the one he had stomped. He found less cash, another burner phone, and the same distinct iron spike and rope tattoo hidden beneath his watch. Ethan stood slowly, the bullet wound protesting the movement with a spike of pain. He took the money and the phones, pocketing them.

'How did Iron Row connect me to Creedence's death?' The question burned in his mind. He had covered his tracks for the police; City Hall was ash, the CCTV was gone, Renee was secured. The police would be focused on the profile of a professional bomber not a school kid. 

Iron Row must have had a direct link... a witness who must've seen him when he murdered Creedence. He didn't have the mental resources to dissect the flaw now; the immediate need for survival eclipsed the complex analysis. He had to move. The sheer noise of the gunshots, the crashing furniture, and the broken glass would have inevitably drawn unwanted attention. 

He stumbled toward the small, filthy bathroom, hoping to find a first aid kit or some gauze. He threw open the cabinet, revealing only moldy towels, empty pill bottles, and discarded razor blades. No bandages, no disinfectant, no peroxide. His parents, in their perpetual state of injury and infection, had long since depleted all medicinal supplies for their track marks and abscesses.

He cursed under his breath before moving to his bedroom. He grabbed a fresh, clean T-shirt from his shelf and ripped it into wide strips. Before binding the wound, he spat into his palm, coating the surface with his saliva. He pressed the wet hand against the open flesh of the bullet wound. A faint, immediate sensation of burning erupted around the lacerated tissue, his Regenerative Saliva activating. The tissue stitched itself, sealing the torn capillaries and constricting the larger veins. He couldn't fully close the wound as the bullet was still lodged inside but the bleeding slowed to a manageable seep.

He tied the makeshift compress around his waist tightly, suppressing the pain, and grabbed his spare duffel bag. He moved quickly packing the essentials: the vials of his vitality serums, his micro-soldering kit, his new phones and cash, and his notebooks detailing the permanent formula. He gave his dead parents one last, blank look, his eyes not lingering on their rigid forms long before he was out the door.

He reached the hallway as burst out into the door, he slammed directly into another person.

Artemis Crock.

She was facing the his way, her hand clutching a small bat of some kind. She jumped violently as he collided with her, the club swinging wide and narrowly missing his head. "Fucking hell, Ethan! You scared the shit out of me!" she spat. She recovered instantly, shoving him back hard. "What the hell is happening? There were gunshots, like a dozen of them, coming from your floor!"

Her gaze dropped, tracking the movement of his hand clamped to his side. Her eyes widened, tracking the dark, wet stain spreading across his lower shirt. The anger vanished, replaced by a sudden wave of panic.

"Holy Christ, Ethan, you're bleeding! What happened? We have to get you to a hospital right now!" She reached out, her fingers brushing his arm, trying to pull him toward the door.

Ethan tried to pull away, shaking his head. The clock was ticking; the men would wake soon, or the Iron Row lookouts would move in. He needed to be gone.

"I'm fine, Artemis. It's superficial. I need to leave now. Just go home." He tried to speak with the detached calm he usually employed, but the pain and blood loss made him sound more desperate than he liked.

That wasn't good enough for Artemis. Her face was pale, the fear for him overriding her usual facade. She grabbed his arm, her grip surprisingly strong. "No! I heard the shooting! You don't just walk off a gunshot wound! You are going to tell me what the hell happened up there before I drag your big ass to the clinic myself!"

"Artemis, listen to me—"

Ding

The abrupt sound of the old elevator arriving interrupted them. Both Ethan and Artemis snapped their attention toward the doors.

When they slid open four figures spilled out—all men, larger and more heavily armed than the previous Iron Row muscle. Their jackets were bulkier, and the weapons they carried were not simple silenced pistols or knives. Ethan's eyes widened immediately as he registered the threat; automatic rifles and pump-action shotguns. A hit squad. They had heard the commotion and come prepared to finish the job.

There was no time for thought, no time for analysis.

Ethan's body moved purely on instinct. He tackled Artemis sideways with devastating force, driving her across the hallway. He smashed his shoulder against the brittle wood of the nearest apartment door, using his enhanced strength to shatter the jamb and propel them both into the dark living space.

The automatic weapons opened fire instantly, the hallway erupting in gunshots and splintering wood. Bullets tore through the hallway, that he had just been in tearing it all up. 

"What the hell are you doing?!" a disgruntled, booming voice shouted from inside the apartment, a man in a greasy undershirt scrambling backward from the sudden intrusion, his eyes wide in confusion and rage. "Get out of my damn house!"

Artemis, however, wasn't focused on the angry resident. She was staring past Ethan, her eyes fixed on the smoke-filled, bullet-riddled corridor where the heavy-caliber gunfire was tearing up the hallway.

"What the hell is going on?" Artemis demanded, her voice a strained whisper as automatic fire ripped through the hallway.

Ethan didn't spare a breath for explanation. "Get out, Artemis! Go back home. I'll lead them in the other direction."

"Hell no!" she spat, her eyes blazing with defiance. "I'm not leaving you alone!"

'Stubbornness... An inefficient but predictable defense mechanism driven by attachment.' Ethan dismissed the thought. He didn't have time to analyse her right now. 

The tenant, a man whose terror had curdled into rage, charged them, shouting, "Get out! I called the cops!"

Ethan moved quickly, sidestepping the man's lunge. He simply hooked his heel behind the man's ankle and tripped him. Before the man hit the floor, Ethan grabbed his collar, hauling him halfway up. "Get to your bedroom now if you don't want to die," Ethan commanded. The man squeaked, a sound of pure terror, before Ethan dropped him. He scrambled away, vanishing down a narrow hall.

Ethan looked to the hallway as he heard the firing stop which was then proceeded by  heavy footsteps pounding down the hallway.

"Shit." He activated Hyperadrenalism again. He slammed the remains of the shattered door shut the moment the first man reached it, then delivered a devastating kick to the center of the wooden panel. The entire door assembly launched straight off its splintered hinges, flying backward and slamming into two of the gang members with tremendous force.

Ethan launched himself off the floor and kicked off the door before propelling his body into a flying tackle, slamming into the two remaining attackers who were reeling from what happened to their friends. He drove a fist into one man's face, the amplified strength shattering his nose and teeth instantly. The man dropped. Ethan rolled forward, avoiding a burst of bullets fired by the other man who was scrambling on the floor. He snapped his hand out and ripped the rifle from the man's grasp before smashing the butt of the weapon down onto the man's temple.

The two men struck by the door were recovering. They shoved the heavy door aside and raised their rifles toward Ethan, but they were met with a startling new attack. Artemis, seizing the gap in Ethan's defense, launched out of the doorway of the ruined apartment in a flying kick that struck one man's chest. She immediately ducked underneath the second man's wild, counter-punch, then jumped up, wrapping her legs around his neck. Using her momentum and core strength, she flipped the man over her back, slamming him hard onto the wreckage-strewn floor.

Ethan blinked, surprise crossing his face at her unexpected martial capability. In that instant, the massive crowbar-wielding man who had been struck by the gun tackled Ethan. Ethan caught the tackle, his enhanced muscles effortlessly stabilizing the weight. He lifted the man overhead with a grunt of exertion, throwing him toward the ceiling. When the man began his descent, Ethan executed a swift, powerful kick to his falling torso, launching the heavy body across the hallway.

The remaining injured man on the ground, whose face  had just been punched in, managed to draw a backup pistol and prime it to fire at Ethan's legs. Ethan didn't run. He launched himself off the ground and ran horizontally across the wall for a second. He pushed off the vertical surface, executing a mid-air turn before landing feet-first with crushing force into the man's stomach, his boots shattering the man's ribs instantly.

Meanwhile, Artemis was shoved against the wall by the larger man she'd flipped. She ducked under his desperate fist, slid forward on her knees, striking the back of his knee to unbalance him. She wrapped her arms around his waist and neck, tensed her core muscles, and flipped him over her back once more, just in time for a shotgun blast from the returning gunman, who had recovered from being hit by the flying kick, to tear through the falling man's torso.

Ethan didn't hesitate. He launched himself over the Artemis, executing a dropkick into the chest of the last armed man, sending him flying through the grimy window at the end of the hallway, glass exploding outward as he fell to the streets below.

Silence returned, broken only by the sound of labored breathing and distant sirens.

Ethan slumped against the wall, deactivating his Hyperadrenalism. The rush subsided, replaced by a slight, sharp pain in his heart, a warning of the cardiac strain. He moved immediately to Artemis, ignoring the burning wound in his stomach.

She was uninjured but stood motionless, staring at the corpse of the man who had been killed by the shotgun blast. Her eyes were wide, fixed on the spreading pool of blood.

"Artemis," Ethan said trying to get her attention.

She didn't reply, only looking at the body in silence.

"You didn't kill him, he was killed by the gunshot wound," Ethan stated, "He was dead before he hit the ground."

Ding

"More of them," Ethan rasped, hauling her forward. "Come on, we need to leave. Now."

Artemis dug in her heels. "No! My mom! She's down the hall. I have to get her!"

Ethan's grip tightened. "They don't know who your mother is! They will if you try to go back now. They will find her, Artemis. You can come back for her later, when this is settled."

The logic penetrated her shock. Her refusal crumpled.

But it was too late. The elevator doors opened, revealing three more gang members, rifles already raised, their faces contorted in shock at the carnage before them.

"Run," Ethan commanded, grabbing Artemis's wrist and sprinting toward the window at the end of the hall. "The window!"

"You're crazy!" she yelled, but the simultaneous roar of automatic fire behind them eliminated the debate.

They reached the shattered window. Ethan pushed her through the opening, diving out after her.

They fell into the cold Gotham night. Ethan analyzed the fall situation in a high-speed, slow-motion blur, his brain calculating the vectors of impact. The fire escape below was too far, too broken. The adjacent rooftop was out of reach. His eyes locked onto a cluster of three large, industrial-sized dumpsters below, positioned in the dark alley. He twisted his body mid-air, using his core strength and Artemis's weight to shift their joint center of gravity, aiming them both toward the largest dumpster, his arms wrapping around her torso to cushion her impact.

They hit the mound of rotting garbage and debris inside the dumpster with a wet thud. The soft, foul mass broke their fall, the garbage soaking their clothes and hair with putrid liquid. Ethan pushed through the pain in his abdomen, hauling himself and Artemis out of the fetid depths. He pulled her onto the slick, oil-stained alley floor.

Artemis moaned, spitting garbage from her mouth. "That was... gross."

"Be quiet," Ethan whispered, ushering her out of the dumpster where they started sprinting deeper into the alleyway. 

_____________________________________

A good distance away from the grimy streets of east end in a beautifully constructed mansion. A tall, impeccably dressed man carried a tray through the halls of the grand mansion. He descended several hidden flights of stairs, the temperature dropping with each step. The steps seemed to go on forever as he walked but eventually He emerged into a cavernous, subterranean space dominated by towering rock formations, but with also numerous other oddities. At the center, bathed in the blue light of massive screens, sat a solitary figure.

The man placed the tray containing the food on the edge of the large console desk, near the keyboard of the primary computer terminal. "Master Bruce," the butler, Alfred Pennyworth said, "it has been sixteen hours since I last saw you take sustenance, and I have yet to see you eat. I have done my best to make the food more portable, and easier to eat so I implore you to partake."

Sitting in the chair, his cowl resting on the desk beside him, was Bruce Wayne. He wore his armored, dark-gray uniform, the residual grime and wear from a night's work still visible on the kevlar. He did not look away from the screens. "I'm not hungry at the moment, Alfred," Bruce replied.

"Nonsense, sir. Your caloric intake charts are alarming, and your physiology requires fuel," Alfred insisted, pushing the plate slightly closer to the console. He picked up a napkin, brushed a speck of invisible dust from the edge of the console, and then addressed a second matter. "I took the liberty of checking your secure comms. You have a message from Miss Barbara. She regrets to inform you that she will be significantly less active on patrol in the upcoming months, due to her involvement in a national science competition. She sends her apologies."

Bruce nodded in acknowledgement, his eyes remaining locked on the central monitor, displaying a grid of looping video feeds. "Acknowledged."

Alfred paused, allowing the silence of the massive chamber to settle before asking, "And may I inquire why you are quite so glued to the screen, sir? The events of the last few days have certainly been taxing."

Bruce's gaze never wavered from the flowing images. "I'm watching the city CCTV feeds, Alfred."

Alfred's silver eyebrows raised fractionally. "I was under the impression that the unfortunate explosion at City Hall had wiped the entirety of the city's central CCTV servers and archives."

"They have," Bruce replied, his jaw flexing. "But I anticipated this kind of vulnerability a while ago. I've had my own proprietary offsite backup servers running parallel feeds for every camera in the major metropolitan areas for months now. They're isolated, encrypted, and impervious to tampering."

"A foresight typical of your genius, Master Bruce. And have you, then, located the perpetrator responsible for this remarkably destructive act of arson?"

Bruce shook his head slowly. He then explained his difficulty. "I believe I have found the individual who slipped into City Hall. He was completely covered—hood, mask, and gloves. He moved with extreme proficiency, never once breaking cover. I have the video loop of him inside the basement, setting the charges. But I cannot trace him outside." Bruce gestured impatiently at the screens. "I have been running algorithms searching for the same height, weight, and general outfit leaving the surrounding area both before and after the explosion. I've found two instances of the same outfit, but the height and weight are fundamentally wrong in both cases. They don't match the powerful frame I see setting the bomb, it's likely he disposed of the outfit the same night he wore it."

Alfred sighed softly, stepping behind the chair and placing a firm hand on Bruce's shoulder. "Then a fresh set of eyes might serve you better than sixteen hours of stale ones, Master Bruce. I insist you rest. Sleep would serve your faculties well, especially given the severity of this new criminal element."

"Soon," Bruce muttered, his focus already returning to the video grid, his hand reaching for the trackball. He zoomed in on a grainy image of the figure inside the server room. Bruce knew he was missing one vital, elementary clue to solving this. An insignificant detail that he must've overlooked, one that would link everything together. 

He would find it. He always did.

(AN: Uh oh, seems like Ethan thought he'd won prematurely but had forgotten the Iron row. Now Batman is onto him and he has the footage that would be able to connect him to the place where Creedence was murdered, to the harbour district, and to city hall. If he knew Ethan Kane was a suspect in the case then he would definitely investigate him. Only Harvey and Renee know that information at present. So shit is stirring.)